How Media Treats Athletes Unequally

Juiced-up Oakland Athletics

Hero: Mark McGwireVillain: Jose Canseco

In the late '80s, McGwire and Canseco were known as the Bash Brothers, one of baseball's most feared duos of sluggers. Since then, however, both players have been accused of using steroids to fuel their home run power.

Canseco admitted to using steroids in his book, Juiced. He also claimed to have injected steroids into his Bash Brother; McGwire denied this in a statement to CBS News. Canseco's first interview regarding his book aired on the network's news magazine show, 60 Minutes. CBS followed up this interview with a news article that referred to Canseco as "The Bad Boy of Baseball" and "The Godfather of Steroids." The same article pointed to greed as one of his "alleged character flaws," referencing the fact that Canseco had charged fans $2,500 a day to hang out with him while he was under house arrest for violating parole.

During a U.S. Congressional hearing that took place in March of 2005, McGwire refused to answer any questions about steroid use — but he did use the hearing as a forum to fire a few backhanded shots at his former teammate. The redheaded slugger attempted to undermine Canseco hearing by alluding to his troubled past. Press coverage helped him in his cause; after he choked back tears at the hearing (his emotion ostensibly rooted in his desire to protect children from the danger of steroids), McGwire was portrayed as some sort of tragic figure.

Violent chokers

Hero: Kevin GreeneVillain: Latrell Sprewell

During a Golden State Warriors practice session in 1997, Latrell Sprewell choked and threatened to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo. As if that wasn't enough, Sprewell returned 20 minutes after the incident had been broken up to attack Carlesimo again. Spree was suspended; as a result, he lost out on $6.4 million in salary and his endorsement deal with Converse sneakers.

An ESPN Classic biography of Sprewell focused on the negatives. The profile framed the Carlesimo choke incident as the defining moment of Spree's career, focusing on it at the expense of anything he did during games. The piece also mentioned Sprewell's banishment from the New York Knicks training camp because of his failure to tell team officials that he had a broken hand. ESPN wasn't the only outlet flogging the guard. An Associated Press article published in December of 1997 prominently featured commissioner David Stern's description of the choke as a premeditated attack. Spree's response, along with a supporting quote from then-Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson, were both buried in the report.

Sprewell isn't the only professional athlete to have been accused of choking off the field. Carolina Panthers linebacker Kevin Greene is alleged to have manhandled the neck of a private citizen, although news of the incident was not widespread. The claimant, a Byron Samples, filed a lawsuit against Greene, saying that he had been assaulted and harassed by him in January of 1999. Apparently, Greene used a reserve deputy sheriff badge to impersonate a policeman, pulling Samples over for driving in a reckless fashion. Samples said that Greene then grabbed him by the neck and dragged him about 170 feet into a gas station.

It took an Alabama jury only 25 minutes to rule in favor of Greene. Most published accounts of the incident were neutral in tone, without any commentary disparaging Greene. An AP report included a quote from him, denying the allegations, in a story written just after the lawsuit was filed.